[winrid]

The use case you're outlining is someone already has access to the database. They can just do a find() in that case and get everything, no query required. You're basically describing an lz77 SSL hack that's like 20 years old, I'm pretty sure they would think of this.

The use case here is just "advanced encryption at rest". Encrypting at rest is one thing, but this means people are less likely to see PII by accident, for example.

[bawolff]

That's not what their blog post says. To quote:

"Queryable Encryption implements a fast, searchable scheme that allows the server to process queries on fully encrypted data, without knowing anything about the data. The data and the query itself remain encrypted at all times on the server."

They are strongly implying that the someone with access to the database should not be able to decrypt the data. According to their blog post that seems to be the entire value proposition compared to what they describe as traditional encryption at rest.

[winrid]

To me this is not what it means. To me it just means I can autocomplete emails etc while not storing the raw, unencrypted email value on the server.